Could Trump’s Iran ‘excursion’ be a bigger global turning point than Vietnam?

A GI throwing his combat jacket towards the Capitol building at a Vietnam war demonstration. Photograph: Bettmann Archive View image in fullscreen A GI throwing his combat jacket towards the Capitol building at a Vietnam war demonstration. Photograph: Bettmann Archive Could Trump’s Iran ‘excursion’ be a bigger global turning point than Vietnam? The far shorter Middle East war has rapidly revealed the strategic weakness of US firepower in an interconnected world In a 1965 speech justifying the war in Vietnam, Lyndon B Johnson argued that the goal was to ensure “every country can shape its own destiny” since only in such a world could the US secure its own freedom. However, he also admitted “such were infirmities of man that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace”. It was the kind of elegant justification of the country’s moral mission to which successive US presidential speechwriters have turned at times of war. View image in fullscreen Lyndon B Johnson gives a televised speech about the war in Vietnam on 13 May 1965 in the White House. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Assured by limitless military superiority and filled with such noble intent, US presidents have repeatedly been lured into launching wars only to find themselves confounded, ensnared and then broken by their inability to overpower an inferior opponent they wholly misjudged. It seemed safe to assume that this was a fate that would never befall Donald Trump . He was implacably opposed to endless wars that seemed disconnected to the everyday lives of his supporters. He would never equate military power with military victory. Yet Trump’s “little excursion to Iran”, judging by the drafts of the potential peace agreements that are circulating, is being universally perceived as a defeat. Almost regardless of the outcome – most likely a return to the old status quo – the war looks ill-conceived, a monument to confused objectives, bad planning and misplaced assumptions. View image in fullscreen Ironically for Donald Trump personally, the shadow of Vietnam has loomed large during his time in the White House. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images In scale, of course, the current conflict does not match the Vietnam war, which went on for years, led to the deaths of 58,220 US soldiers, and is often perceived as the totemic and unmatchable example of US hubris. By comparison with the Vietnam odyssey, Iran feels more like a day trip. But in terms of consequence, it is still possible that the “excursion” will prove to be the bigger geopolitical turning point for the unrivalled superpower, the moment when the US will have to concede it mishandled a war not just because it had no convincing battle plan, but also no grand strategy to match how the contemporary world works. In an interconnected world, Trump believes progress is achieved through conflict, not cooperation. Ironically for Trump, the shadow of Vietnam has always loomed large, and not just because he repeated